Heroes
by Kgirl1
Summary: Being a hero, saving the world… It was the stuff of movies, and novels, and kid's cartoons. It was what you looked up to, the thing you wanted to be when you grew up. And sometimes, it was lonely.


**A/N: Mood music for this one is "Holding Out for a Hero," the slow version. Not that you need to play it while you read, but, just something to think about. Anyways, it's a bit of a sadfic. Read on.**

**Heroes **

It happened on a Thursday. After dinner, but, before bed. The sort of strange, in-between, twilight hour; the one that paralleled them almost too well. The rec room was empty, and they were passing through after a round of dish duty together, when she caught his arm. The grasp of her fingers sent electricity up and down his traitorous limb: Vert could feel each individual finger of the gentle hold.

"Hey."

He turned to face her, her hand quickly withdrew, went to push a strand of hair behind her ear. He longed to do that for her one day.

"Um, can we talk?"

He was surprised. "Sure."

They sat at opposite ends of the couch. There was so much space between them. He needed the distance if he was to keep his cool, but at the same time wanted none at all.

"So, ah… what's up?" He voiced their communal unease, his thumbs twirling anxiously around each other.

"I've been…thinking lately." Agura started the dialogue, her voice cautious and guarded. "About a lot of things."

"About the Reds?" He volunteered, in hopes of steering the conversation into trivial territory.

"About us, Vert," she replied timidly, and it made his heart jump.

"As in… me and you?" He echoed.

"As in me and you," she confirmed, nodding anxiously. "I just think…. Well, I think that we've both been thinking about it, and… maybe something needs to be said." Her eyes darted over to him, tentatively, as if she was scared of repercussion. "Do… Do you maybe think that?"

He was at a loss. Too many hopes and fears rode on her question. "I, um, yes. What do you… What are you thinking?"

"Well…" Her eyes went back to the coffee table in front of them, and Agura knit her hands nervously together. "I don't have a lot of experience with things like this or even know that much about them, Vert, but…"

"But?" He looked at her with open eyes, terrified of whatever she might say, and she turned and faced him.

"I think I might be in love with you," Agura blurted in a grand tumble of words. "And I could be totally, completely, utterly wrong, and this is so, so hard and so embarrassing and I think I'm about to majorly mess it up, but… I think you might feel something too."

The statement crashed into him like an iron chain.

"Agura, I…"

She flinched the second the words left his mouth, and ran her hands through her hair in distress. "Oh my God, I knew I shouldn't have said that, I'm so sorry, you probably think I'm—"

"No, Agura, it's not that," he assured her rapidly. The iron tightened around his chest. "That's… that's not it at all."

"Then… do you maybe…" She didn't dare look at him for fear of having her hopes dashed against the rocks. "Are you saying that I wasn't entirely wrong?"

He exhaled again, heavily. There was no way to tell her what he needed to say.

"That's not it either. It's… hard to explain."

She stared at him. "Explain it. Please, Vert, that took all of the courage I've got." She moved closer to him and grabbed his hands with her own, forcing him to look at her.

He was stunned. He forgot whatever explanation he had been concocting in his head for the moment as she looked hopefully into his eyes. Her legs were against his; her palms pressed sincerely into his own. Her warmth abated the icy, excruciating grip of dread. He saw every minute flutter of her eyelashes, every hopeful speck of gold in her eyes, wanted to close the tiny gap of space between soft lips. He drank in her beauty in the knowledge that none of it could ever be his.

She was waiting.

He tore his hands away and abruptly stood up.

"I don't think so."

"Wh—What do you mean?" Her voice was soft. Betrayed.

"We're not…" He trailed off, paced the floor. Tried to put a whirlwind of emotion into words. "I don't think that we have what you think we do."

"And what do you think we have?" Agura demanded anxiously.

"I don't know!" He snapped desperately. "I honestly don't know what I think!" It was a lie. He did know. He had always known. But he also knew that it didn't matter.

"Well, do you know what I think?" Agura stood up and tried to keep her voice from shaking. "I think that we've been denying each other and denying ourselves. I'm sick of it, Vert! I'm so sick of pretending I don't have feelings for someone who can make me smile anytime I so much as think about them, and I'm sick of pretending that he doesn't feel anything for me." She stormed in front of him and stopped his pacing. "Whatever this is, Vert, whatever we have, I want it to be real. I'm tired of second-guessing, of decoding every little thing, of never really being _sure_. And maybe it won't work out, maybe it's all in our heads, but, I want to find out. I want to _try,_ Vert. I think it's— I think _you_, are worth it."

He stared back, at an utter loss for words. It was painful, knowing how badly she wanted it, knowing he could never give it to her.

The answer fell out of his mouth like a sour pill. "I can't."

"You…can't?" She repeated, her voice strangled.

He broke away from her and paced again. "It just… it isn't a good idea!"

"What's not a good idea, falling in love?!"

He froze, and they faced each other with intensity burning in his eyes. "We're heroes, Agura. We don't get to fall in love."

"And if we do?" She cried. "If we can't help it? If we know that the stars are pushing us together for a reason other than the fate of the world we fight for?"

His mouth tightened into a hard, flat line. "We push those feelings away."

"We've done that for two _years, _Vert! It's not working anymore!"

"Then we try harder!" He snapped. "I… have responsibilities right now, Agura. I—… I don't have time for things like love."

"Right," she sniffed. "You lead the Council now. How dare I even think that I deserved someone as high and mighty as you?" Her tone was derisive, bitter with contempt, but it thinly concealed severe hurt.

"That's not it!" He scowled, and clenched both of his fists. Vert exhaled forcefully, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft, almost achy. "That's never been it."

"Then what is, Vert?" She begged. "Why aren't we allowed to say what we feel and be who we are?"

He refused to meet her eyes.

"Vert, _please—_"

"All I know, is that the world we're trying to protect out there, is immensely greater than what two of its defenders feel for each other," he finally said, in words that were firm and resigned.

"So you do feel something," she said flatly. "You admit it."

He sighed heavily. "Does it really matter—"

"_Yes._" Her jaw trembled. "Because you matter to me."

He turned, and looked her dead in the eyes. "And you want me to say that you matter to me?"

She blinked, unsteadily.

"Okay." He began. "You're my second-in-command and my teammate. I know that you can lead the team if anything ever happens to me. I trust you, I respect your judgment, and you help me keep everyone else in line." Vert faltered, and took a deep breath.

"But I don't love you." He swallowed hard. "I never did."

"You're lying," she accused. Agura's voice trembled. Vert sucked in air, and his shoulders tensed.

"No, I'm not. I could never love someone like you." It came out in a hoarse whisper.

"Vert…" His name was soft on her lips, treated dangerously, as if it were coated in poison. A plea, a warning— It was his final chance to take it all back, to go back to when his name had been honey and spices, slipping from her tongue like a wonderful secret.

And he couldn't. Ever.

"No." He turned away from her and began pacing the room. "You're… controlling, most of the time. You don't take risks. You never want to have fun, and I don't get your sense of humor at all. You're not all that pretty and you're definitely not very feminine. You boss people around and you're neurotic, too, like all of the time." He faced her. His own words were acrid in his mouth.

"You need to stop deluding yourself, Agura. There's nothing between us, and there never will be."

"There's something here, Vert, I know there is!" She responded with the shaky speech of someone trying not to cry.

"The only thing I'm here for is our mission!" He yelled. The faster, the harsher, the crueler he could be with her, the better. It would leave a wound too deep and scaring to heal; a laceration on the heart she would never open for him again. She stood motionless as he shouted, and said nothing afterwards. Vert looked away and stared at the floor as her feet drew nearer to him. When green boots stood inches from his own, he could ignore her no longer, and looked up. Light eyes met dark, and they shared both aching and understanding. Agura reached out, and her hand grazed his jaw with fingers that were warm but trembling. She touched him there, and he stared at her in wonder and awful grief.

"Why do we have to lie to each other?" Her voice was painfully quiet. The eyes he looked so deeply into brimmed with tears. He could have kissed her in that moment. Her gaze was a pull, an electric force. He should have kissed her. He needed to.

Vert turned away from her, severed the gaze. Severed the bond. Cut away the one person he held closest to him. He turned his back on the girl he loved more than anything. Agura, who knew him so well, who loved him too, recognized the significance of his stance, and she choked out a sob.

"I've never lied to you." He clenched his teeth around vile words and held back the strangling heat in his throat. "And I'm not going to start any time soon."

"Vert…" Her voice was a bare whisper.

"We're just, _heroes,_ Agura."

"We are _more_ than that_,_ Vert!"

"No!" He snapped, and she recoiled as if he had struck her. He amended his words in regret. "Individually, maybe, but you and I… together… heroes."

"It's what we _do_, Vert!" She couldn't let him give up. "It isn't who we are!"

"In this case, this time, it is." He stared at her, but eventually his eyes softened ever so slightly. "There's never going to be an _us_, Agura. Don't you see?" He begged. She needed to understand; he couldn't discuss the matter anymore. He would break, crack open and spill his heart out and hand every shred of it over to her. The Multiverse couldn't have that. "There can't be."

Her lower lip quivered. "Fine."

He swallowed the lump in his throat and turned away. "I'll see you at training tomorrow."

She said nothing as he walked out.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

It needed to be done. There was no other way. His only option, the only way to protect her and the planet they fought for, was to hurt her. To leave a wound so thorough and so deep that she wouldn't want it to heal, wouldn't ever let him come close to it again. That was what he needed.

That was what the Multiverse needed.

Breaking her heart was the only thing he could do.

And so he broke it. Cracked it, ripped it apart, shattered the damned thing into fragmented, blackened shards. He left nothing for her to love him with. He thought that maybe, one day, she might understand, that she might thank him for making it impossible for her to love him again. Slash and burn.

What a delusion it was. He knew he had destroyed her and any chance they might have together. How cruel and twisted was he, to devastate the one thing in the world that he loved most in the name of duty?

Vert tried to convince himself that it had to be done so violently. He was doing her a favor by making it easier for her to get over him, wasn't he?

But oh, God, how it had to sting. It would take her a long time to realize that, and… maybe she never would.

And then there was him. Two breaking hearts left more debris than just one. He would always love Agura. Her smile would always melt him; her mere presence would never fail to lighten his mood. No matter how hard he tried, how many lies he told himself, how many times he ignored every instinct he possessed, he would always love her.

He would always have to push those feelings away.

At least he had practice. But to know that his own feelings, all of his pining and dreaming and fantasy, were being reciprocated, to any degree, was pure torture. How could he go on pretending he didn't love her?

Being a hero, saving the world… It was the stuff of movies, and novels, and kid's cartoons. It was what you looked up to, the thing you wanted to be when you grew up. It was noble. It was courageous. It was daring, perilous and bold.

It was lonely.

It was going to stay that way.


End file.
